Business Management

Business Management

1. What is the Purpose of a Performance Appraisal?

Performance appraisal has lots of purposes. It is the systematic measurement and evaluation of employee work behaviors as part of an organization's performance management system. Performance appraisals typically focus on employee behaviors or performance dimensions that are required of the position and tend not to include discretionary employee behaviors. Reflecting social, political, and organizational changes, performance appraisal systems continue to evolve to serve many different individual and organizational purposes (Drucker, 2001).

Performance appraisals may be used for a variety of purposes, which may be classified into three categories: within-person, between-person, and system maintenance purposes. Within-person purposes involve identifying an employee's strengths or weaknesses to provide developmental feedback to the employee, set employee goals, or suggest particular training or development programs. Between-person purposes are used to make comparisons between employees and may be used to identify who should be promoted, administer merit pay increases, or decide which employees should be terminated. System maintenance purposes include using the appraisals to validate personnel selection assessments, identify organizational training needs, or document information pertaining to personnel decisions.

2. What are the Steps Involved In the Marketing Process?

Under the marketing concept, the firm must find a way to discover unfulfilled customer needs and bring to market products that satisfy those needs (Drucker, 2001). The process of doing so can be modeled in a sequence of steps: the situation is analyzed to identify opportunities, the strategy is formulated for a value proposition, tactical decisions are made, the plan is implemented and the results are monitored.

The Marketing Process

Situation Analysis

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Marketing Strategy

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Marketing Mix Decisions

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Implementation & Control

1. Segment the marketplace--you're going to be approaching managers, individual contributors, external organizations and others.

2. Prove the problem--people think their processes are already just fine.

3. Target benefits--for managers it may be promotion; for contributors, more free time; for R&D, smoother communication.

4. Bring in early adopters and evangelists--let people that are respected spread the word.

5. Create incentives for adoption--establish rewards (not competitions) for strong process.

6. Provide quality customer support--help them throughout the adoption period.

7. Monitor, measure, modify--until it's stable and working properly.

3. What is Utility?

Utility is always subjective and refers to the amount of personal or institutional satisfaction of an alternative. The personal satisfaction associated with the outcome of good food, a holiday trip or a sports car depends on taste, interests and needs. Institutional satisfaction associated with the outcome of employment strategies or treatment selection predominantly depends on economic considerations (Welch, 1998). It is assumed that both individuals and institutions try to maximize their utility. Choosing alternatives according to their utility lies at the heart of all summative evaluation procedures.

Prescriptive utility theory can help to identify promising alternatives. Descriptive utility theories explain and predict actual decision behaviour and help to protect against common traps. Taking both viewpoints into account will improve decisions, ensuring higher utilities and better lives for individual decision makers as well as institutions.

4. What are the Steps in the Personal Selling Process?

Selling is at the core of almost every ...